Record-holders suggest 63-yarder will be toppled

"Stats all say the same thing - 63 yards," said Titans kicker Rob Bironas, proud owner of one of just eight field goals in league history that were good from 60 yards or more.

Bironas and his contemporaries all know conditions have to be just right for a long kick to have a chance.

The situation must be ideal - probably the closing seconds of the second or fourth quarter to eliminate the risk of handing the opponent superb field position if the kick is wide or short. The wind, the temperature, even the barometric pressure can make a difference. So can the snap, spin, hold, trajectory, protection.

If the ball is new, the leather laces aren't loose and the ball doesn't compress as much. The sheen of the ball can make a kick stray like an errant golf shot, only a smidgen of error at impact dooming a kick before it's even cleared defenders' outstretched hands.

And the longer the kick, the more important small mistakes at impact can be when the ball reaches the goal posts.

Dempsey and Elam became friends after Elam joined the record-holders club, and Dempsey said that, once he recuperates from a recent hospital stay, he's going to reach out to Janikowski, too.

"I had this surgery so I didn't get a chance to call him, but I'm going to send a letter to him and tell him that I was proud of him," Dempsey said from his home in New Orleans. "You respect the effort, because you know it will be broken someday."

Elam watched Janikowski's kick from his home in Soldotna, Alaska.

"I watched where he was lining up and I knew he had the leg to do it," Elam said.

The most impressive part about Janikowski's kick was that he didn't hit the ball square - "To be honest, I didn't hit it that good," he said after the game.

Janikowski said he thought he could hit one from 74 or 75 yards in the thin air of Denver and probably from about 68 closer to sea level. He hit from 70 yards in warm-ups with plenty of room to spare. He has gone even longer in previous trips to Denver or on the training camp field in Napa, Calif., when he got a ball flush, according to holder Shane Lechler.

The record-tying boot might not have even been the most impressive for Janikowski in his career. In December 2009, Janikowski hit a 61-yarder that barely cleared the crossbar on a cold day in Cleveland, an accomplishment Elam considers just as noteworthy as any of the 63-yarders.

A soccer background, combined with better nutrition, training and instruction that kickers bring to the field on Sundays make it a certainty that somebody will eclipse the record - and soon, Dempsey said.